Oh the humanity of it all! Back in November I had written about the decidedly weird chemophobia around Sodium Benzoate being promoted by Panera Bread, one of my favorite bakery and soup-salad places in the US. As I wrote, my wife and I love to eat there, but its anti-science, pro-pseudoscience stance on this issue was profoundly disappointing. Well, three-quarters of a year later, it turns out they are still assiduously at it.

I love the café/bakery eatery chain Panera Bread. Ever since I was introduced to them in 2003, my wife and I have frequented this establishment in many different cities of the US, finding with delight that our trust in their food quality and quantity has not been misplaced. We love their menu items, soups and sandwiches – even some of their seasonal salad offerings (and that’s saying something, because neither of us is a very salad-y person). My wife is particularly keen on their Chai Tea Latté. Their bakery is excellent, not to mention the delicious breads they make, which can be bought separately. So imagine my consternation, when on a recent visit, I discovered that they appear to be peddling some weapons-grade bullshit about chemicals and additives in food.

It all started with a silly article that had landed in my inbox on Friday morning via the platform called ‘Medium’. The lede of the article in the Pacific Standard magazine by Elena Gooray asked: How do you beat a curse? It caught my eye even in the middle of an eye-roll. I wish it hadn’t. Because inevitably I caught the sub-lede: A practiced Santa Barbara psychic weighs in on Lil B’s so far effective curse against basketball superstar Kevin Durant. And my hackles were raised.

Those who read my regular posts (Yes, that rare breed of people…) are amply aware that I am no fan of pseudoscience and quackery, as well as the relentless invasion of quackery into academia, leading invariably to scientifically implausible, nonsensical “research”, for which Dr. Harriet Hall had aptly coined the term “Tooth Fairy Science” several years ago over at Science Based Medicine.

The April 1 issue (-giggle-) of PLOS ONE published an article on the alternative medicine modality of electro-acupuncture (EA) by a group of investigators from Shanghai, China (DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0122087). The basic premises of the study are sound:

Fear does strange things to people. The fear du jour currently permeating the US is, of course, the Ebola virus disease. Despite the august efforts to reassure and educate from CDC and the WHO, there has spread a modicum of panic (often with tragic results); we have seen Ebola response become a political issue, and as pointed out recently by that redoubtable scienceblogger, Orac, a ghastly profusion of conspiracy theories and quackery has crawled out of nooks and crannies, feeding into the overall noise that is smothering rational discourse on the topic. But even before Orac wrote on it, my attention was drawn on Twitter to the latest volley of insane quackery to emerge, a supposedly “Ayurvedic approach” to curing Ebola – the Ayurveda nowadays being a catch-all term to refer to everything pre-scientific mumbo-jumbo allegedly written in the ancient Hindu holy texts, the Vedas. Because culture.

Poor wee “All Natural”, “Herbal” dietary supplements — ‘safe and effective’ alternative medical modalities so beloved of the pseudoscience aficionados and woomeisters all over the world: they can’t get a break!

On June 2, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued a public warning – via its Medication Health Fraud webpage – against 6 over-the-counter products for ‘Sexual Enhancement’, its second-largest single-day set of warning in this particular category. (The largest-yet set was warnings against 7 products in June last year.)

Today, the 20th of January, is the third Monday of this month. It is a cold, gloomy day, pretty much like most winter days here in Baltimore. I woke up; after my usual hesitation to leave a warm bed on a cold day, I went for my morning ablutions, and left for work at the usual time. Little did I realize that today — the third Monday of January — has long been christened the Blue Monday, allegedly the most depressing day of the year.